
Products, Services And Practices Founders Are Trying To Live Longer And Healthier
It’s an occupational hazard for beauty and wellness brand founders to be experimenting with or at the very least investigating the latest in beauty and wellness. As a result, they’re often excellent sources for recommendations about emerging products, practices and services. With the growing popularity of the longevity movement, which promotes not just living longer but living better throughout one’s life, we were wondering what aspects of it have captured their attention that could capture the attention of the public more broadly in the future.
So, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 15 beauty and wellness brand founders the following: What have you adopted as part of your longevity routine? What are you interested in trying that you haven’t yet?
- Cindy Crawford Founder, Meaningful Beauty
I don’t think about a longevity routine, it’s more about just living the best way I can without being obsessive. I’ve always tried to do the obvious things like avoid too much sun, drink water, exercise, don’t smoke, try to get enough sleep, etc. As I’ve gotten older and been exposed to more wellness modalities, I have added in saunas, cold plunges and red light therapy. (Meaningful Beauty just added a red light device for those challenging areas!)
I’m actually a pretty good guinea pig! I already use a PEMF mat and a BioMat for infrared sometimes. I also like lymphatic drainage massage. I’ve done some IV vitamin drips, primarily the Myers' cocktail with glutathione, but I am thinking about doing an NAD IV as well for cell energy and DNA repair. Another emerging technology that I find interesting to follow is stem cell therapy.
- Kevin Gould Co-Founder, Glamnetic and Insert Name Here
The last 18 months I have been on a get better sleep journey. I’ve always struggled with inconsistency in the past. I ended up buying both an Oura Ring and Eight Sleep, which have been game changers and increased my sleep tremendously. I also purchased a red light therapy machine from PlatinumLED Therapy Lights and do that a few times a week.
Lastly, I started meditating for 15 minutes per day over a year ago and that has been amazing for stress management and centering my mind. Things I have looked into but have not tried yet include cold plunges and stem cells.
- Sabrina Elba Co-Founder, S'able Labs
I’m a big fan of infrared saunas. They’re such a game changer for me, particularly when it comes to being able to find a space I can find calm in.
I just love how they help me relax and reset, especially with how busy life can get and how physical my roles can be when it comes to either being on your feet all day or just needing a moment to unwind. It’s like a little retreat where I can detox, relieve stress, and give my skin a healthy boost. The anti-inflammatory benefits are also crucial for our health. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite ways to feel rejuvenated and take care of myself.
For me, wellness and longevity are also deeply tied to community. I believe that surrounding yourself with people who uplift and support you is one of the most powerful tools for long-term health. Whenever I have downtime, I like to use that time to re-nourish myself by spending time with family or friends.
I’m not one to be excited about anything cold, especially cold plunges, but I have found that I’m happy to do cryotherapy. I think the dry cold was much easier for me as I’m not really a wet-cold kind of person. l particularly love the way they’re said to boost both mental resilience and physical recovery.
I’ve also been hearing a lot about frequency mats and grounding mats, which I now swear by, especially their ability to promote relaxation and balance and healing. I sleep with a grounding mat every night, and it’s the best sleep I’ve had.
- Amy Gordinier Founder, Skinfix
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge fan of functional medicine, wellness and longevity. When I was seven years old, my family moved from New York to Los Angeles, and our neighbors were Dr. Dobbins, a Caltech physicist who was a staunch anti-sugar and holistic wellness advocate, and Dr. Lambros, a neurosurgeon with a deep interest in holistic medicine. Combine that with a Taurus mother who shopped almost exclusively at health stores and did everything possible to avoid us taking antibiotics or medications of any kind, and you can understand my deep interest in wellness.
I have seen functional practitioners for 40-plus years. I regularly do vitamin IVs, infrared saunas, cold plunges, ice packs on my vagus nerve, grounding and forest bathing. I have daily meditation, gratitude and prayer practices.
I exercise. I get my steps in. I take oodles of supplements, including NAC, NAD, vitamins C, D, B, omega 3s, adaptogens and am a sucker for my favorite wellness practitioner’s latest “wellness bundle.” I also believe in the criticality of hormone replacement therapy pre/peri and post-menopause. I rarely drink alcohol, eat very little dairy and zero gluten. I try to limit “bad” carbs.
And, yet, I seem to get sick often. I tell myself that it’s travel, hormone imbalances, stress, maybe indulging in sugar, but, increasingly, I am starting to believe I am missing a critical ingredient for health and lifespan.
The common thread in all of Dan Buettner’s famous “blue zones,” communities with a statistically significant number of octogenarians), is community. In North America, we valorize independence. We move away from home and boast about our ability to manage it all, one to two working parents raising kids on their own. We have lost multigenerational living, where extended families share in the responsibilities and joys of raising families.
I am currently visiting Laguna with my parents, and my brother and family came down from LA to escape the poor air quality of the tragic fires in LA. For a few days, we lived as one big extended family. I spent hours with my amazing 6-year-old nephews playing basketball, exploring the beach, soaring on the swings. Every night, we set a table for 10. We ate as a family and laughed, cried, communed.
It was clear to me that this is what is missing in my life—community. It has been shown over and over again to be a powerful ingredient for a long and well life. It is my priority for 2025 and beyond.
- Winston Ibrahim Founder and CEO, Hydros
Weekly activity: Two to three sprints on a Carol Bike a week, two to three varied weightlifting, and two long hikes on the weekends.
Daily: Morning cold plunge, evening sauna, evening cold plunge and meditation before bed.
Supplements taken daily: Creatine, high EPA fish oil, collagen with vitamin C, Quicksilver Liposomal Multivitamin or Thorne Double Vitamins and astaxanthin.
Injections: I have a customized protocol of peptides and other compounds with something for 20 days out of each month with 10 days off. The precise nature of the mix varies seasonally or if I'm trying to optimize for longevity, injury recovery, cognitive benefits, anti-inflammatory, etc.
It typically includes BPC 157 (broad-based body recovery), TB-500 (tissue and ligament healing and injury prevention), thymosin alpha 1 (immune system booster), NAD+ (mitochondrial energy enhancer for systemic optimization), glutathione (detox, immunity, anti-inflammatory, and energy production).
Two times a year I will do a vial of epitalon and pinealon, bioregulator peptides that serve to optimize general purpose antiaging and endocrine function. Occasionally I will have this done in larger intensities through IV administration in order to get super absorption, though given how long and consistently I've been doing this, and my general state of high health is not as necessary anymore.
All of this has been curated under the expertise of the amazing Dr. Matt Cook of BioReset Medical. Dr. Cook and I have known each other for almost a decade when he helped me recover from an emergency medical procedure that had left me barely able to walk.
In a 20-minute, minimally invasive procedure called a hydrodissection, he injected the scar tissue and every nerve in the area with hundreds of millions of regenerative stem cell growth factors leaving me completely without pain. A year of physical therapy, assessments and work by top traditional doctors had done next to nothing for me. Afterward, I helped provide some of the seed capital to help launch BioReset.
Through Dr. Cook, I have done multiple rounds of IV treatments for a decade of various regenerative compounds, stem cell growth factors called exosomes (anti-inflammatory and tissue healing), actual umbilical cord cells at a partner clinic in Mexico (general purpose regenerative and longevity) as well as billions of natural killer cells. This is a very interesting procedure where a specialized lab takes 20 or so vials of your blood, extracts your white blood cells, painstakingly analyzes and selects the best ones, and then makes billions of copies.
You then get those injected via IV back into your body in a partner clinic in Latin America, repopulating your immune system with the best-in-class cells. This is meant to better guard your system from general diseases, flus, colds and cancer. I will likely cycle all the above treatments every few years for general maintenance, barring some unforeseen issues that would require more frequent and intensive applications.
One thing I'm hoping to try soon that is somewhat out of the box and must also be done out of the country is gene therapy. There is a specialized clinic in Latin America that will inject you with a virus that will reprogram every cell in your body to upregulate itself with a higher degree of antioxidants, mitochondrial biogenesis, resistance to disease, etc. One of the additional benefits is much higher cerebral blood flow and electrical connections between hemispheres, potentially improving executive function and work capacity.
Much of the above might sound excessive or crazy, but having experienced the benefits, I can say it is definitely worth it and can be particularly impactful if you’re dealing with serious issues. Guidance from seriously experienced medical experts is a must. Obviously, I am highly biased to Dr. Matthew Cook from BioReset, but there are increasingly large numbers of doctors across the country and world who are experienced or exploring how to utilize many of the above as part of their practice.
Traditional Western medicine, particularly for acute situations, is amazing. I will forever be grateful to the doctors who I've had, and though I don't love taking them, even pharmaceuticals have their place and benefits, and I take it seriously when medical professionals prescribe them. What Western medicine has been less good at has been optimizing our systems to be more resilient and healthy in the first place, particularly in respect to the numerous challenges and stressors of modern life.
Much of the above is designed to reduce or eliminate the multifold damage modern life can wreck and to build a healthspan reserve/cellular optimization so that, if and when bad things unexpectedly happen, a faster and more complete recovery is possible. I'm hopeful that more research and development, more nuanced understanding and upgrading of regulations, and scaled investment in the raw production capacity of peptides and stem cells will lead to a wider embrace of regenerative medicine as another valuable pillar of the broader American health system.
- Katie Echevarria Rosen Kitchens Co-Founder, FabFitFun
I would say finding time for myself. It sounds so simple, but the reality is that, as a founder and a mom, there were many, many years my wellness took a backseat to almost everything else. These days I work out nearly every day, doing a combination of cardio and weights.
Cardio is amazing for heart health and stress reduction, while weightlifting is essential for women over 40 to maintain muscle mass and bone density. Doing a regular combination of cardio and strength training has been shown to significantly increase longevity.
I love cryotherapy and biweekly visits to StretchLab. Cryotherapy is known to reduce inflammation, improve circulation, boost immunity and stimulate the production of collagen. Stretching improves flexibility and reduces stress, one of the most important factors to staying healthy.
I also love contrast therapy, which is a combination of cold plunge and infrared sauna. It’s known to improve circulation, reduce inflammation, boost cognitive function, improve heart health and boost your mood. Despite the intense fear of getting into that freezing cold plunge, you feel incredibly powerful afterwards.
I try to spend tons of time outdoors. Living in LA allows us year-round access to hikes, the beach and daily walks. Studies show regular sunlight has a positive impact on overall health. Last, but not least, I take a variety of supplements including collagen, turmeric, probiotics and colostrum, and try to eat a healthy, vegetable-rich diet.
There are still so many wellness treatments that I want to try. I would love to do regular hyperbaric oxygen treatments. It has been shown to help cells heal faster, increase energy, improve memory and overall cognitive functions, and help slow the aging process overall. I would also love to do regular NAD+ IV drips that can improve mitochondrial health and also help slow aging.
- Sarah Kugelman Founder, All Golden
I have incorporated lifting heavier weights to protect bone and muscle loss and balance exercises to prevent falling in later years. I continue to incorporate exercises for my mind. It’s why I love dance, you have to memorize routines, but starting a business at 61, they say, keeps your mind active and at optimal performance
I take supplements every day: omega 3, saccromyces lysate (anti-inflammatory), herbal supplements from Bonafide instead of hormones to help with menopausal symptoms and Armra Colostrum to help with skin and hair.
I recently heard a world-renowned longevity expert speak at the UN, and he said to take Mitopure. They said it’s proving to be very successful in promoting longevity. I’m also thinking about incorporating collagen supplement. I am going to have a full work-up on my hormones so that I can explore a totally customized HRT program.
- Emily Heintz Founder and CEO, Sèchey
I keep a bottle of Rasasvada Black Ginger in my fridge at all times both as a nightcap and to put in my morning coffee. It's polarizing because of the balanced bitterness, but I love it because it provides powerful health and wellness benefits when your spirit needs restoration. It is fully plant-based, supports liver cleansing, has mood-boosting properties and has rapid fatigue recovery properties.
Sleep is key to our long-term wellness, so we stock a lot of items that can support better rest and improve your mood. I love Alice Nightcap Chocolates with Reishi, Chamomile, L-Theanine, magnesium and zinc. My other go-to is Kin Lightwave, a canned evening ready-to-drink beverage that reduces my stress.
I also love Pilates and frequent Longevity Fitness here in Charleston for their classes. The founder, Jenny, has been so supportive of Sèchey from day one. They will be stocking our alcohol-free sparkling wine soon.
I’m also super excited about mushrooms this year. They are definitely having a moment, and more compounds are entering the market for us to try. We will be launching our own legal product as well in the space!
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As an entrepreneur juggling Beia and Beautini, I’ve realized that my longevity routine isn’t just about living longer, it’s about showing up as my best self every day. One of my favorite rituals is starting my mornings with a scoop of Armra Colostrum in my coffee with A2 Milk. It supports my immune system and keeps me energized for those early morning laptop sessions where I tackle my top three priorities for the day.
I’ve also made movement non-negotiable. Whether it’s a reformer class at BODYROK or a dance-inspired sweat session at KKSweat, my workouts are more than physical, they’re mental therapy. It’s my way to clear my head, get inspired, and reset. Afterward, I refuel with my go-to oatmeal topped with flax and chia seeds because a full schedule calls for fuel that actually sustains me.
Ultimately, wellness is all about balance. Whatever it is, I focus on what makes me feel good inside and out.
- Lucy Goff Founder, Lyma
Being consistent with a handful of proven, achievable wellness efforts is the best way to prioritize your health long-term. My three nonnegotiable rules are:
- I don’t eat anything with an ingredient in it that I wouldn’t have in my kitchen cupboards. It keeps me well away from ultra-processed foods and my nutrition on track.
- I drink a lot of water and prioritize high water content foods, which are excellent at naturally hydrating skin. Cucumber, bell peppers and celery are great for that.
- I take the Lyma Supplement to combat inflammation from within and use the Laser to rejuvenate from the outside. Both are truly unmatched tools for longevity.
What interests me most is the why and the how. I’m naturally a curious person, but everything has to be grounded in science. Even before stepping into the wellness industry, I’ve always been fascinated by health tech. Wearable tech particularly intrigues me, and I’m seriously considering an Oura ring. Whilst I already feel stronger and more resilient than I did in my 30s, I’d love to see the data confirm it.
- Martha Graeff Founder, Happy Aging
I’ve embraced a holistic approach to longevity that combines daily habits with science-backed practices. I start my mornings with a mindfulness routine that includes meditation, breathwork and writing in a manifestation journal to center my mind and body.
I prioritize nutrient-dense foods rich in antioxidants, healthy fats, protein and creatine. Supplements like (Happy Aging's NAD+) boosters and adaptogens are staples in my routine, as they help enhance energy and resilience. Regular exercise, including yoga, Pilates and strength training, keeps my body strong and flexible. These practices are my way of investing in a vibrant and healthy future while fully enjoying the present.
I’m so curious about trying cold plunges. I’ve read so much about their benefits for reducing inflammation and boosting mood, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet, pun intended! I’m also intrigued by wearable technologies like continuous glucose monitors to better understand how my body reacts to different foods and activities.
Frequency mats for relaxation and cellular health are next on my list as I’ve heard they can be transformative for recovery and stress management. There’s so much innovation in the wellness space, and I love discovering new ways to support my health journey.
- Colleen Cutcliffe Founder and CEO, Pendulum Therapeutics
As a woman in her 40s who has had children, I have adopted a few things into my routine to help my health both today and into my future. They are mostly focused around the pillars of 1). nutrition/microbiome, 2). strength/movement and 3). sleep/stress management. For nutrition and a healthy microbiome, I prioritize eating foods with protein, fiber and polyphenols.
And I take Pendulum’s Glucose Control, the only clinically proven probiotic to improve metabolism. I try to avoid ultra-processed foods and sugars. For strength and movement, I try to get workouts in most days, even if they are sometimes short and weak. (It’s more about the routine of it). And I have started to incorporate strength training into every workout after my friends Halle Berry and Peter Attia really helped me understand how important that is.
Lastly, I am incredibly disciplined about getting good sleep and having a consistent bedtime. I am an early riser no matter when I go to bed, and by figuring out my optimal sleep patterns, I haven't used an alarm clock for over 20 years. Meditation and the practice of letting go and decluttering thoughts have always been a part of my stress and mental health routine as well.
[I am interested in trying] Eight Sleep and Plasma Exchange.
- Lejla Cas Founder, Knesko Skin
Longevity isn’t just about extending life, it’s about enhancing the quality of every day. My approach is a balance of movement, nutrition, recovery and mindfulness.
Movement is a nonnegotiable. I start my mornings with either a strength-training session or a nature walk to energize my body. Nutrition plays a major role, too. I fuel myself with a nutrient-dense smoothie, often including microgreens, sea moss and protein for optimal cellular health.
Recovery is just as important as action. I prioritize seven to eight hours of quality sleep, and while I’ve used sleep trackers like the Oura Ring in the past, I now focus on intuitive rest, listening to my body instead of relying solely on tech.
To boost circulation, reduce inflammation and increase resilience I incorporate cold showers into my routine. I also prioritize self-care rituals such as using Knesko Eye Masks to reduce stress and support skin health.
One new addition I’m exploring is infrared sauna therapy. The benefits—detoxification, improved circulation and deep relaxation—align perfectly with my longevity goals.
Longevity is a lifestyle, not a quick fix. It’s about the small, daily habits that compound over time, creating a life that is not just longer but richer, healthier and more vibrant.
- Colette Courtion Founder, Joylux
As someone passionate about women’s health and wellness, I believe longevity is about more than just extending life, it’s about enhancing the quality of life. For me, that means adopting a routine that prioritizes my well-being.
When it comes to self-care, I’m obviously a big believer in innovative wellness tools like our Joylux vFit device, which help me maintain intimate health and overall confidence as I age. Longevity isn’t just about outward health, it’s also about addressing the intimate changes women experience throughout life. I have been leveraging technology to help me keep my overall health top of mind.
I am loving my Hume Health Body “scale,” which provides data covering a multitude of health metrics including muscle composition, sleep metrics and hydration levels. As is the goal with any home use health device, these insights empower me to make informed decisions about my health.
I’m always curious to explore new approaches. One area I’m so excited about is red light therapy. I’ve seen its benefits for skin health, muscle recovery, intimate wellness and even mood enhancement. Given its potential for improving cellular function and reducing inflammation, I’m excited to see how it could further complement my existing wellness practices. Anything I can incorporate at home that is easy and beneficial is high on my list given my busy lifestyle.
- Peter Thomas Roth Founder, Peter Thomas Roth
Exercise has always been part of my routine, but, over the past several years, I’ve started doing a lot more of it! I always try to do some kind of exercise, whether it’s going to the gym, walking, running or just moving.
Sometimes, it’s hard to get motivated, but after working out, I feel healthier and more energized. If I have no motivation one day, I might briskly walk home from the office or watch a good action-adventure movie, so I feel as though I’ve parachuted out of a plane or climbed Mount Everest! Variety is important, so swimming, skiing, tennis, even the occasional foosball, sometimes replace my gym workout for the day.
I’m always interested in trying something new, but some of the best activities for longevity have been around for years. I make an annual trip to Hungary’s thermal springs, which are incredible. You’ve got to go! The mud and minerals are very healing and soothing, which not only help your skin but also your general wellbeing.
My grandparents owned spas in Hungary, and men and women would come from afar to soak in the mineral-rich, fountain-of-youth thermal waters. Even if you can’t make it to Hungary, I do recommend making it to a thermal pool, sauna or steam room. They’re amazing for relaxation, stress reduction and overall pain relief.
If you have a question you'd like Beauty Independent to ask beauty and wellness brand founders, send it to editor@beautyindependent.com